SMERSH (Russian: СМЕРШ, acronym of SMERt' SHpionam, Russian: СМЕРть Шпионам, English: Death to Spies) was the counter-intelligence agency in the Red Army formed in late 1942 or even earlier, but officially founded on April 14, 1943.[1][2] The name SMERSH was coined by Joseph Stalin. The pretext for its creation was to subvert the attempts by German forces to infiltrate the Red Army, especially after the Third Battle of Kharkov, which inflicted staggering losses on the Russians during World War II.[3] SMERSH was less concerned about the counter-intelligence (covered by NKGB "Special Services"), than about the loyalty of the Red Army's own servicemen and commanders. Stalin, obsessed with conspiracies and espionage, needed an additional watchdog to deal with the strategic crises, and SMERSH filled that role. The organization was officially in existence until March or April 1946, when its duties were transferred back to NKGB.[4] The head of the agency throughout its existence was Viktor Abakumov, who rose to become Minister of State Security in the postwar years.
Contents |
On February 3, 1941, the Special Sections (osoby otdel) of the NKVD (responsible for Military counterintelligence of the Soviet Army) became part of the Army and Navy (RKKA and RKKF, respectively). The GUGB was separated from the NKVD and renamed the People's Commissariat for State Security (NKGB), with the Counter-Intelligence (CI) sections assigned to it. Following the outbreak of World War II, the NKVD and NKGF were reunited on July 20, 1941 and CI was returned to the NKVD in January 1942.[5][6]
On 14 April 1943, the State Defense Committee (Gosudarstvenny Komitet Oborony [GKO]) ordered the split of The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs Main Directorate for State Security (GUGB/NKVD) into three organizations: The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) which ran the secret police responsible for political repression; the People's Commissariat for State Security (NKGB) which acted as a secret police, intelligence, and counter-intelligence force throughout World War II; and the GUKR-NKO, also called SMERSH. The CI was again transferred to the People's Commissariats of Defence (NKO) and the Navy (NKF), becoming SMERSH within NKO. The full name of the head entity was Главное управление контрразведки СМЕРШ Народного комиссариата обороны СССР, or USSR People's Commissariat of Defence Chief Counterintelligence Directorate "SMERSH". The organization was headed by Viktor Abakumov, who was a subordinate of Lavrenty Beria. Therefore, SMERSH belonged to the state security apparatus rather than to the Red Army.[5][6]
There are many possible reasons for this division. As the requirements of the war expanded and the Soviet armies began their conquest of previously occupied German territory, the complexities of counter-espionage, counter-insurgency, and occupation were sufficiently large to encourage Stalin to consolidate all of SMERSH under his direct control. Not only did the breakup streamline the Soviet Union’s internal and external intelligence operations, but it allowed the GKO and Joseph Stalin greater control over each of these organizations. Intelligence officers became responsible for their effectiveness as they could not blame their failure on the regular military officers in the GUGB/NKVD’s chain of command. Further, Stalin was able to check the growing ambition of Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, the head of the GUGB/NKVD. The GKO utilized this sudden name change in order to create confusion within the Abwehr, the German military intelligence organization.[7]
The GUKR-NKO received the nickname SMERSH in a Special Department meeting with Stalin in which Stalin rejected the nickname “Death to German Spies” or “Smert’ nemetskim shpionam” retorting: “Why . . . should we only be speaking of German spies? Aren’t other intelligence services working against our country? Let’s call it ‘Smert’ Shpionam’ (Death to Spies).” [8]
The GKO officially created SMERSH to ensure the Soviet Union’s security from internal political threats and foreign espionage, although it carried out a wide variety of other tasks between 1943 and 1946 as well.[9] SMERSH’s counterintelligence operations included seeking and destroying counter revolutionaries, finding and interrogating enemy agents, hunting Soviet agents who had not returned by the appointed date, and evaluating the usefulness of captured enemy documents. SMERSH also took an active role in the affairs of the Red Army by ensuring the good quality of Red Army facilities, improving discipline, eliminating poor leaders, and preventing desertion, self-inflicted wounds, panic, sabotage and poor discipline. Other SMERSH activities included: exposing collaborators in areas recently captured by the Red Army; exposing and punishing economic crimes such as black market activity; protecting secret material and headquarters from enemy agents and saboteurs; and determining the “patriotism” of those captured, encircled, and those who had returned from foreign countries. SMERSH operatives also controlled partisan operations behind German lines and evaluated the partisans’ loyalty to the Soviet Union.[10] SMERSH would then arrest and neutralise anti-Soviet partisans, saboteurs, spies, conspirators, mutineers, deserters, and people designated as traitors and criminal elements at the combat front. As the requirements of the war expanded and the Soviet armies began their conquest of previously occupied German territory, the complexities of counter-espionage, counter-insurgency, and occupation were sufficiently large to encourage Stalin to consolidate all of SMERSH under his direct control.
The strategic directorate focused on counter-espionage wet operations and counter-insurgency pacification operations that answered directly to Stalin.[5][6] In March 1946 SMERSH Chief Directorate was resubordinated to the People's Commissariat of Military Forces (Наркомат Вооруженных Сил, NKVS). The NKVS was later reorganized into the Ministry of Military Forces (МVS) soon thereafter, and SMERSH was officially discontinued in May, 1946.
SMERSH activities included "filtering" the soldiers and forced labourers recovered from captivity.
SMERSH was also actively involved in the capture of Soviet citizens who had been active in anti-communist armed groups fighting on the side of Nazi Germany such as the Russian Liberation Army, the Cossack Corps of Pyotr Krasnov, and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (see also forced repatriation).
As the war concluded, SMERSH was given the assignment of finding Adolf Hitler and, if possible, capturing him alive or recovering his body. Red Army officers and SMERSH agents found Hitler's partially burned corpse near the Führerbunker after his suicide and conducted an investigation to confirm the events of his death and identify the remains which (along with those of Eva Braun) were reportedly secretly buried at SMERSH headquarters in Magdeburg until April 1970, when they were exhumed, completely cremated, and dumped in the Elbe river.[11][12]
At the end of the Second World War, American forces examining captured German intelligence sources determined that SMERSH was composed of six directorates, six departments, and three other branches. Directorates conducted operations involving agents on the “frontline” of the intelligence war whereas departments received and interpreted the information coming in from agents and enemy intercepts. SMERSH also ran three other groups; the Komendatura, which guarded and managed SMERSH installations and prisoners; the Troika, which acted as a military court and could administer punishment without defense from the accused; and the Administrative Bureau and Secretariat, which acted as the personal staff of the SMERSH commander.[13][14]
Below is the organization of SMERSH based on German Intelligence:
Stalin --- People's Commissariat of Defense (NKO)
| | |
| | |
| | |
Secretariat GUKR (SMERSH) --- Administration Bureau
|
|
|
Directorate --------------- Dept. Tech/
Staff Surveillance | Signal Surveillance
|
|
|
Directorate ----------------- Dept.
Troop Surveillance | Security
|
|
|
Directorate ------------- Dept. Information
Counter-intelligence |
|
|
|
Partisan Directorate-------------Dept. Censorship
|
|
|
Personnel Directorate-------------Code and Cipher Dept.
|
|
|
Investigations Directorate-------------Special Investigation Dept.
|
|
|
Troika-------------Kommendataura/Guard Unit
|
|
Administrative Bureau
and Secretariat
Stephan, Stalin’s Secret War, 212.
This Chart shows another way SMERSH may have been organized:
People's Commissariat of Defence
|
|
Chief and Deputies
|
|
|
Secretariat
|
|
|
|
Section 1 ----------------------------- Section 5
Counter-intelligence protection | Oversight of SMERSH
of central Red Army institutions | organs in military
| districts
|
|
Section 2 ----------------------------- Section 6
Work among POWs | Investigations
|
|
|
|
Section 3 ----------------------------- Section 7
Counterespionage and | Information and
Radio games | statistic
|
|
|
Section 4 ----------------------------- Section 8
Organization of Counter- Codes
intelligence behind and
front lines communications
Org.References - Lubianka 2. Iz istorii otiecziestwiennoj kontrrazwiedki, W.A. Sobolewa Moskwa 1999
In its counter-espionage and counter-intelligence roles, SMERSH appears to have been extremely successful throughout World War II. SMERSH actions resulted in numerous captures, desertions, and defections of German intelligence officers and agents, some of whom SMERSH turned into double agents. Indeed, the Germans began to consider missions where their losses were less than ninety percent “satisfactory.” According to German sources, the Soviets rendered approximately 39,500 German agents useless by the end of the war.
SMERSH utilized a number of different counterintelligence tactics: informants, security troops, radio games, and the passing of disinformation, ensuring both the reliability of the military and the civilian population. SMERSH set up a system of informants by sending a SMERSH officer to each battalion composed of between 1,000 and 1,500 men. Each SMERSH officer would enlist a number of “residents” who recruited their own “reserve resident” and between six and eight informants. Informants reported those sympathetic to the Germans, desertion, unpatriotic attitudes, and low morale and were authorized to take “immediate corrective action” if the need arose.[15] SMERSH recruited between 1,540,000 and 3,400,000 informants, or about twelve percent of the entire Red Army. However, SMERSH coerced up to half of all of its informants to work for them.
In order to secure the Red Army’s rear, SMERSH evacuated civilians and set up checkpoints so as to assert physical control. Next, agents sought and arrested “suspicious persons” who might be German agents. Finally, SMERSH interrogated those arrested.
To confuse German intelligence with disinformation, SMERSH utilized radio playbacks and played over 183 radio games over the course of the war. Operation “Opyt’” serves as a good example of the effectiveness of these radio games. Between May and June 1943, SMERSH used three German agents to spread disinformation about the Kursk counteroffensive by suggesting the Red Army had begun to dig in rather than prepare for an attack, thus contributing to the success of the Red Army’s surprise attack. Before Operation Bagration, the largest Allied operation of the Second World War, SMERSH caught and “doubled” a number of German agents who tricked the German military into underestimating the number of Soviet troops by 1.2 million men.[16]
SMERSH played a major role in creating and controlling partisan operations behind German lines. SMERSH agents infiltrated German-held territories, blowing up German rest facilities and assassinating commanders, knowing that the civilian population would suffer German reprisals. The civilian population would then become motivated to support and joined partisan groups, often run by SMERSH. After capturing German-held territory and reuniting with the Red Army, SMERSH interviewed partisans in order to determine the partisans’ loyalty to the regime.[17]
Jordan, Jonathan. "Operation Bagration: Soviet Offensive of 1944." HistoryNet.com. www.historynet.com/operation-bagration-soviet-offensive-of-1944.htm (accessed May 14, 2011).
Michael Parrish. The Lesser Terror: Soviet State Security, 1939-1953. Westport: Praeger, 1996.
Stephan, Robert. "Smersh: Soviet Military Counter-Intelligence During the Second World War." Journal of Contemporary History 22, no. 4 (1987): 585-613.
Stephan, Robert. Stalin's Secret War: Soviet Counterintelligence Against the Nazis, 1941-1945. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004.